The Flip
by Ellie Lildat
Summary: A pre-Sunnydale Buffy thinks about the future during her melancholy last normal moment.


author: Ellie Lildat  
disclaimer: *pfft*  
summary: fifteen year old Buffy contemplates the life she had and the life she's about to live.  
an: I'm blaming Sarah Michelle Gellar for this one. I've got a bitter streak about her ice skating in What My Line P1 and I'm gonna fix things. If Buffy had been skating since she was a kid, I doubt she would had been skating like _that._ See? Bitter.  
an2: This was just an attempt to get myself to write something. Don't expect something great besides a de-writer's-blocker.  
  
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**The Flip**  
  
  
This is it, isn't it?   
  
The last time I'll be able to come in here, lace up my skates, and let my emotions out as I etch my moves into the surface of the ice; I won't be able to do this anymore.   
  
My life was complicated enough without having to worry about things like destiny, callings, or the occasional evil vampire.  
  
I'm not allowed to be worried about my posture in my layback anymore, it's roundhouses and uppercuts now.  
  
The nights I planned to spend, working on my speed and height in my axels will now be full of hunting down the undead.   
  
**Lean back, square the shoulders, right arm solidly held in front of me.  
  
**I'll never be allowed to daydream about my routine during the day ever again, I have new things to concentrate on.**   
  
the equally steadily graceful left arm held elegantly out to my side.  
**  
Protecting people- the mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters of the world, making sure that they still hold those titles for another day.  
  
**Cross the right foot in-front and around the left...   
  
**I fight the ones that were once a family member, but now are just soulless animals that kill for fun. I kill the killers, completely against my will as I kick their chests so they fall to the ground.  
  
**Slowly look over left shoulder.  
**  
But even when I do end up slaying four on a good night, I know that it was only because there were four that I missed some other night when I was trying to sign up for extra ice time and had to wait in line behind disgruntled parents of five year old protégés.   
  
**Watch while move backwards as the boards quickly become closer...   
**  
Somebody else lost a child because I wasn't there for them.   
  
**In one solid half turn I step foreword onto my left foot, now having that arm guide me.**   
  
Or maybe somebody lost a parent.  
  
After tonight, I won't be able to be elegant ever again. I'll be a killer and only a killer, trained to hunt and fight because no one else can do it.   
  
**The right one holds it's same position, only now in a straight line with my collar bone-   
  
**For years I spent my afternoons and nights in this moldy arena, training to jump and spin in a way that no one else would do, but that's gone.   
  
**I panicked.**  
  
When I last saw Merrick- last night before his body crumpled heavily to the ground in-front of me- he said that I shouldn't think like that. I do good, but I can't do everything; he chuckled that the watchers council would... whatever the british version of freak... if they ever knew he told me that. But he said it was the truth, a slayer is still only human and I can't let what I didn't do get to me. I have to focus on what I still have to do. He was so reassuring and wise, I've never had anyone treat me the way Merrick treated me... and now he's dead.   
  
**The speckled boards of the wall are rapidly getting closer and closer.**   
  
I'm not supposed to panic.  
  
It hasn't even been a month since I met Merrick- since I was told of my calling and sacred duty. Three weeks, actually.   
  
**I switch my guiding arms as I've done so many times that it barely registers.  
  
** Three weeks of combat and weapon training, becoming almost comfortable with the feeling of ragged wood against my palm as I walk down dark Los Angelian streets... It's been hell.  
  
**I step into a graceful three-turn on my right foot...  
  
**There's a dance tomorrow, and I had been planning to go with Tyler. But Tyler won't even talk to me... nobody will talk to me anymore besides Pike.   
  
**I don't even pay attention as I find myself guiding backwards-   
  
**From now on everything is supposed to be about slaying, saving the world like I'm destined to until I die. But I'm already dead as far as anyone's considered, and I miss life so much.   
  
**There's only a split second before my left foot reaches far back-  
  
**I want to dance in the arms of my true love at the dance, be a girly-girl that cares more about what color her dress is than whether she brought enough stakes in her handbag. And I'll never have that, not with slaying being the main drive of my life. From the moment I land after this jump, I'll never have anything but slaying to think about in my life.   
**  
Picking into the ice as I lift my body into the air, legs and arms quickly crossed as I make the simple full single turn-   
  
**Do I really want that?**   
  
landing with a soft thump as my right blade connects with the ice again, just before a soft crunch is made by the curve in my glide while I hold my landing position for an unconscious count of five. **  
  
I barely notice that I made the flip-jump, so deep in thought before I find myself once again in the echo chamber of ice, alone.   
  
Because what I want doesn't matter anymore.  
**  
  
The End.**  
  
Feedback appreciated.


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